Battle Grounds: Truths
by BlackRose
Summary: *YAOI* Irvine x Zell - A few realizations and truths in the early hours of the morning.


**Battle Grounds: Truths  
By BlackRose, 2001**

Disclaimers: Squaresoft and a whole bunch of other people own these lovely boys. I'm just a harmless hentai. ^_^

This one comes after "Stand Down" (they'll all come more or less consecutively now). (Battle Ground series available at http://www.digitalmidnight.net/garden/ff.html)  
  


* * *

  
He's beautiful when he sleeps.  
  
He doesn't sprawl out - I'd half expected him to. But he's a compact sleeper, curled on his side with his limbs tucked in neatly. Not tense, though; he relaxes in sleep and even those wisps of hair, too short to be easily slicked back like the rest and too long to stay out of his eyes, have come loose to trail in rumpled strands of gold across his forehead.  
  
I labeled him 'cute', once. I was wrong, and I can admit it. He's fucking gorgeous.  
  
It's amazing how many of a man's illusions can be proven and broken just in one night, catalogued one by one as the morning creeps in.  
  
He *is* a screamer. He's learned to muffle it - against the pillows, against the blankets, against my shoulder and I've got the teeth marks in my skin to prove it. He apologized for it later but frankly, I wasn't complaining.  
  
And he's not just a good kisser. If I was a less scrupulous man I think I'd start carrying lollipops around in my pockets because odds are if you offered him one he'd pop it straight into his mouth - and watching him eat something like that would be a floorshow that a man ought to pay money for. He's oral as all hell and anyone who's made jokes about that has *not* been on the receiving end. I guarantee it.  
  
His hands are as strong as you'd expect. From head to toe he's all muscle, compact and smooth. his palms and fingers are calloused oddly and I finally had to ask - he said it's from the padding inside his gloves.  
  
He's a complete sucker for a massage, sprawled out boneless on his stomach and purring like a cat.  
  
He's as generous in bed as is he anywhere else.   
  
He doesn't take up the space, but he does kick the covers off. His tan lines are damn near indecent. Black ink on golden skin would be an easy fetish to fall into - the arc across his brow and cheek isn't the only one and the black knot nestled in the curve of his lower back is just the size of my outstretched hand, triangular and oddly sweeping, like the stylized wings of a bird.   
  
There's two matching dimples there, right at the base of his spine.  
  
He tastes like spring thunderstorms and citrus fruits, fresh and bright across the tongue, with lightning like the sweet tang of alcohol on his lips. He smells like mint and cool shade and the spray of sea salt on a hot day.  
  
He's ticklish as all hell and if it involves his ribs all bets are off.  
  
He's easy - not in a derogatory way, mind you, but *comfortable* easy, easy to be with. With him it's not awkward or stilted or fumbling. It just is, and he's relaxed about it.   
  
He's a tease only as long as its fun for everybody, and once he's done teasing he delivers.  
  
He snores, just a little, tiny puffs of air through a half open mouth with one hand tucked beneath his cheek.  
  
There's a whole list of things that I know this morning that I didn't know yesterday. And now, when I can think again, there's a certain someone I can name who should know all of it, but doesn't, and maybe that's just his loss and my gain.  
  
Right?  
  
Fuck that.  
  
Because I know a few other things as well. I know Zell's eyes close when he comes and his head falls back. I know that he's a screamer right up until the end, when his breath gives out and he's too caught up in it to make another sound and his mouth is open and gasping and the noises he does make are pure sex.  
  
And I know who's name was on his lips... and it wasn't mine.  
  
He doesn't even know he did it, but I do. Maybe it shouldn't matter - after all, *I'm* the one who's laying in bed beside him, and that's what counts, right?  
  
And maybe the chronometer set in the wall isn't flashing some obscene hour of the morning while I lay here and think about it.  
  
You know, if I just didn't give a shit this would be a hell of a lot easier. I wouldn't be awake. I wouldn't be thinking about it. I definately wouldn't be sliding out of a warm bed with a willing body in it to find a pair of jeans and a hair tie.  
  
But when I'm walking down the corridor in my bare feet at 0300 in the morning to pound on the door of someone who isn't going to want to hear what I damn well want to talk to him about... well, maybe it's time to add another item to the list of 24hour truths of the last day. Maybe I do give a shit. Maybe I give a hell of a lot more of one then I ought to.  
  



End file.
